Popular Democratic Party

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - San Juan Mayor Sila Calderon, a staunch and popular opponent of U.S. statehood for Puerto Rico, launched her much-anticipated bid to unseat the island's pro-statehood governor Friday. Calderon, 56, of the opposition Popular Democratic Party, emerged as the likely rival to Rossello during the past year. Although the election is 11/2 years away, the PDP convenes to nominate its candidate May 30.

When Puerto Ricans go to the polls today to participate in the island's general election, there will be a green option on their ballots. The island's first environmentalist party will be on the ballot next to the three historical parties that have long dominated the political discourse. Although Puerto Ricans for Puerto Rico is not expected to win, the presence of this 1-year-old party has forced a discussion of the environment and energy-renewal policies. "I think we have moved the conversation forward," said Rogelio Figueroa, that party's gubernatorial candidate.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Opponents of U.S. statehood for Puerto Rico asked a court Thursday to block a December plebiscite on the island's future relationship with the United States. The Popular Democratic Party, which supports the current commonwealth arrangement, claims Gov. Pedro Rossello has rigged the definitions on the ballot to favor statehood, which he supports. Party leader Anibal Acevedo Vila filed the complaint in San Juan Superior Court. The vote, which is not binding on the U.S. Congress, is scheduled for Dec. 13.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- After four years in the governor's mansion here, Sila Calderon called the job of presiding over this Caribbean U.S. territory "a very lonely position." Her successor, Anibal Acevedo Vila, is about to find out just how lonely it can get. After a bitterly close race, followed by a recount and court challenges that have hardened political division, Acevedo Vila will be inaugurated in ceremonies today in San Juan. He enters La Fortaleza as the first governor in the 52-year history of commonwealth government to face both a Legislature and a delegate to Congress of the opposing party.

A former governor has come out against the proposed sale of Puerto Rico's long-distance telephone company to a Spanish carrier, saying such a sale would hurt the United States. Luis Ferre released a letter he had written to the Federal Communication Commission, urging it to reject the sale of 80 percent of the commonwealth-run system for $141 million to Spain's Telefonica Internacional. The proposed sale was announced Feb. 6 by the Popular Democratic Party government. Ferre is a friend of President Bush and the founder of the commonwealth's opposition New Progressive Party, which supports making Puerto Rico the 51st state.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Resident Commissioner Anibal Acevedo Vila claimed victory in the island's gubernatorial race Wednesday, saying he remained confident a recount, already under way, will preserve his upset victory. It's a bittersweet victory, Acevedo Vila acknowledged as he thanked supporters outside his Popular Democratic Party's headquarters. Puerto Rico will now have "divided government," he noted, because the pro-statehood New Progressive Party won control of the island's Legislature and the resident commissioner's post.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - July 25, always the most politically frenetic nonelection day in Puerto Rico, usually puts the spotlight on the Popular Democratic Party as it celebrates the creation of the commonwealth status it now defends.This centennial year, greater attention will be focused on the statehooders and independentistas in Guanica, where U.S. troops landed in 1898, and that may be just as well for the PDP.As it celebrates the 46th anniversary of the Puerto Rico Constitution and commonwealth status on Saturday, the party still suffers a lingering hangover from an unresolved question of leadership, internal divisions and external assaults on commonwealth status.

Gov. Pedro Rossello touted his administration's accomplishments last week in a State of the Country address that lasted two hours and 15 minutes, but many of the legislators from the main opposition party only heard a little less than two hours of the speech.When Rossello began speaking about the improvements in the Aqueduct and Sewer Authority, legislator Alfredo Lopez Malave of the Popular Democratic Party held up a sign noting that Las Piedras and Humacao, two towns he represents, are ``without water.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Democracy rarely gets a greater workout than it has in Puerto Rico this decade, where voters have gone to the polls every year except for one since Gov. Pedro Rossello was elected in 1992.Now, the governor wants to hold two more referendums to approve amendments to the Puerto Rico Constitution. But while Rossello cites the electoral activity as evidence of his ambitious and still-unfinished reform agenda, his opponents and some voters say the annual trooping to the polls only worsens already deep political divisions.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Democracy rarely gets a greater workout than it has in Puerto Rico this decade, where voters have gone to the polls every year except for one since Gov. Pedro Rossello was elected in 1992.Now, the governor wants to hold two more referendums to approve amendments to the Puerto Rico Constitution. But while Rossello cites the electoral activity as evidence of his ambitious and still-unfinished reform agenda, his opponents and some voters say the annual trooping to the polls only worsens already deep political divisions.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Resident Commissioner Anibal Acevedo Vila claimed victory in the island's gubernatorial race Wednesday, saying he remained confident a recount, already under way, will preserve his upset victory. It's a bittersweet victory, Acevedo Vila acknowledged as he thanked supporters outside his Popular Democratic Party's headquarters. Puerto Rico will now have "divided government," he noted, because the pro-statehood New Progressive Party won control of the island's Legislature and the resident commissioner's post.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- With about 77 percent of Puerto Rico's precincts reporting, the race to become the island's governor remained too close to call late Tuesday. Former Gov. Pedro Rossello and Resident Commissioner Anibal Acevedo Vila were locked in a statistical dead heat with about 1.5 million votes counted. Rossello of the New Progressive Party was leading with 48.6 percent. Vila of the Popular Democratic Party trailed with 48.4 percent. Ruben Berrios of the Puerto Rican Independence Party was third with 2.6 percent and conceded the race by 9 p.m. Vila emerged shortly before midnight to tell supporters he planned to spend the night at his campaign headquarters until "every vote is counted from throughout the island."

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- For decades, only one force has been strong enough to drive this island's political agenda. But that era may have ended Sept. 15 when Tropical Storm Jeanne crept ashore. Jeanne not only turned Puerto Rico into a federal disaster area, it also jolted the political landscape, blew the "popular" out of the Popular Democratic Party and created a powerful new issue that is uniting all Puerto Ricans as the fall elections approach. The burning political question no longer centers on whether Puerto Rico should become a state, a sovereign country or remain a commonwealth.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Luis A. Ferre, the industrialist, publisher and philanthropist who took his dream of Puerto Rican statehood to the governor's mansion, died in San Juan early Tuesday. He was 99. Known universally as "Don Luis," a title that conveyed a respect and affection that cut across political divisions, the MIT-educated cement magnate broke the 40-year hold of the Popular Democratic Party on La Fortaleza in 1968 to become the first pro-statehood governor of this U.S. territory.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- The few dozen protesters in front of the Capitol shook their hips to the catchy, Christmastime hit flowing from the loudspeakers. To not so subtly make their point, some held up posters saying it was time to "fumigate" the Governor's Mansion. Kill the roach That bit up your shirt If you don't kill her, squash her If you don't, she'll jump on you And so the 2004 gubernatorial campaign begins. It may seem disrespectful to indirectly call Gov. Sila Calderon a roach -- and they were doing it while she addressed the Legislature in her State of the Commonwealth message this month.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Gov. Sila M. Calderon's $1 billion plan to fight poverty found support among the poor, but critics questioned whether the money could build all the homes and provide all the jobs she claims. In a much-anticipated address, Calderon decried the existence of "two Puerto Ricos" -- one comfortable, the other impoverished -- and unveiled a five-year plan this week that she said would build 20,000 homes, create 32,000 jobs and extend drinking water and electricity to hundreds of thousands of families.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - To march or not to march? A few weeks after the idea for the ``March for Dignity'' came to light, it seems doomed, a victim of hard ideological lines drawn on the island's political status.The idea, pushed by Eduardo Morales Coll, president of Ateneo Puertorriqueno, one of the island's premier cultural preservation institutions, was for Puerto Ricans of all ideological stripes to demand the U.S. Congress take responsibility for ending Puerto Rico's status dilemma.But then he started to get the political parties involved, and the idea seems to be collapsing.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Carlos Pesquera's anger boiled over as he stood in the June sun, cradling Old Glory in his arms. After a four-hour standoff, he was determined to place the flag where his heart told him it should go -- right next to the red, white and blue Puerto Rico flag in the lobby of a government building in Old San Juan. The New Progressive Party that Pesquera leads had spent decades and millions of dollars on failed attempts to gain statehood for Puerto Rico. Even more frustrating, the ruling Popular Democratic Party was pushing the island further away -- politically and emotionally -- from Washington.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- In what seems like a replay of last year, pro-statehood activists will pull out the stops on July 4 to prove to Washington that, despite some recent rhetoric from the island, Puerto Ricans love and are loyal to the United States. San Juan Mayor Jorge Santini, the New Progressive Party's president in the capital city, will host an official ceremony and a big party, U.S. flags and all, under the theme "a people that honors its nation." Of course, by "nation" he means the United States, which puts him in direct conflict with those on the island who refer to Puerto Rico as their nation.